I am 56 hours into Dragon Quest XI and I have reached the point where I put it on only when my roommates are around so we can make fun of the game together, and that's the only way to stomach it. It is almost unbearable, I guess at this point I am still playing it to fortify my spirit.

On the side I have started Labyrinth of Refrain which is very enjoyable. As stated before, it is (a) Bard's Tale made by the Disgaea people so you have to expect a lot of leveling up, infinitely randomly generated loot, and basically infinite dungeoneering. AS IT SHOULD BE.

Hahaha, that's almost exactly how I played through DQ VIII. I can't be sure there's not a diary out there somewhere with entries like "It's day 7 of grinding metal slimes and I can no longer tell where the slimes end and I begin."

I'm waiting for the bugs that everyone is complaining about in the Pathfinder game. So far I would say it's like "Adequate Updated Baldur's Gate". Like, fun, and ok? You really have to like 3.5 because this is really faithful to that. The ridiculous unbalanced encounters have been significantly patched out, but I started having more fun playing on easy mode, as even normal sometimes still brings crazy shit that's utterly wrong for the area. It's RNGjesus, because you can go from a greater weretiger to 4 kobolds in two encounters, but, anyhoo. It's like playing with an imaginative DM who does good character work and world-building who is slightly autistic about saying "I'm sorry, but you've all been killed because that's what the dice say."

I am still considering what I think of Pathfinder: Kingmaker, but so far I am more than mildly annoyed with it.

You need some tanks that can take abuse up front, and some DPS that can kill the stuff beating on the tanks before the tanks die.

Oh, and healing is painful. I cast heal, oops, that person is unconscious. And the heal was for 1 anyway. Potions are are almost useless. And everything does way too much damage, and has far too many hitpoints. Plus their AC is ludicrous. And that's on Normal.

I may follow Khaldun's example and set it down to Easy, just because it's that goddamn annoying.

I started with the out of the box paladin, but that was just not going well. I restarted with the out of the box sorcerer and that is going so much better that it's ridiculous. Oh, and I made the barbarian use sword and board instead of her stupid giant sword.

As Khaldun said, the encounters vary wildly, and in the early levels (probably later levels too) you can end up with dead tanks in two rounds because lolcrits.

Save early, save often, just save.

Oh, and there are multiple creatures that can inflict permanent stat debuffs. And at least one encounter that will put a permanent constitution debuff on you. As in, either spend 700 g for a scroll or wait until you have a level 5(?) cleric to cast Restoration.

Weight is annoying. Having to rest every 5 minutes is annoying. And you have to rest, because exhaustion is too much of a debuff to ignore. You need supplies to rest, 1 per person, and they weigh 10 pounds each. In the overland it's not that big a deal, as you can hunt, but in dungeons you can't hunt, so bring lots.

I may look into modding the weight of those supplies down to 1 pound, just because weight is that goddamn annoying. Encumbrance affects how quickly you become fatigued and exhausted, and both of those put debuffs on your characters. Plus I am about to start stabbing the characters as they whine every time they get fatigued.

Oh, and the swarms you encounter in one of the first quests you are given are just really fucking stupid. Bring something that can do AOE damage or don't bother.

Also, there are multiple hidden areas that require a successful perception check to find, and the guides I've glanced at so far all recommend that you save scum until your perception person detects them.

The permanent stat debuffs in Pathfinder are nearly unforgiveable. The swarms are an absolutely stupid mechanic. There's a lot of dumb stuff that developers should be over by this point. But I am still kind of having fun on Easy. Normal is not fun.

Right? The first time I saw a permanent stat debuff on a character I was in a level 3ish area, and I had to check 2-3 times before I fully convinced myself that it was a permanent debuff. Then I went looking around to see what would remove it, and sure enough, Lesser Restoration doesn't cut it. Has to be Restoration. Which is a level 3 spell, so wait until level 5 until someone can actually cast that? No.

Wait. Just checked. It's a level 4 spell. So I can't even start clearing permanent debuffs until level 7? Eeeeeesh.

... I saw diamond dust for sale at a vendor, there actually is a non-zero chance casting Restoration will require that as well.

Needless to say I reloaded the game. Rather than wait 4.25 levels or spend 700 gold on one scroll for one person.

Hmmm, according to a steam discussion, apparently "permanent", depending on the difficulty level you selected, means until you rest in a safe location. Or the Restoration route for difficulties above Normal.

Right? The first time I saw a permanent stat debuff on a character I was in a level 3ish area, and I had to check 2-3 times before I fully convinced myself that it was a permanent debuff. Then I went looking around to see what would remove it, and sure enough, Lesser Restoration doesn't cut it. Has to be Restoration. Which is a level 3 spell, so wait until level 5 until someone can actually cast that? No.

Wait. Just checked. It's a level 4 spell. So I can't even start clearing permanent debuffs until level 7? Eeeeeesh.

... I saw diamond dust for sale at a vendor, there actually is a non-zero chance casting Restoration will require that as well.

Needless to say I reloaded the game. Rather than wait 4.25 levels or spend 700 gold on one scroll for one person.

Hmmm, according to a steam discussion, apparently "permanent", depending on the difficulty level you selected, means until you rest in a safe location. Or the Restoration route for difficulties above Normal.

One of the difficulty options when you start the game is if resting well clear all "permanent" debuffs or not. The only reason not to put a check mark next to that option is if you feel you need to play the game at a non-custom difficulty for achievements. You can also select an options where you and your companions automatically revive after combat if they died. I strongly recommend both of these options, even if you leave the rest of the game on hard mode.

The mechanic permanent debuff makes sense in a pen and paper setting to add tension and drama and because you have a game master that can temper things. In a CRPG the most likely thing that will happen is that a player reloads a save or abuses the rest mechanic or they grind levels/money to buy a scroll.

Currently playing a lot of Forza Horizon 4 on PC. Goddamn, they killed it when it came time to optimize this game - I'm running it on 1440p/Ultra settings and haven't seen the low side of 60FPS yet.

The actual game is goofy open world racing stuff like the rest of the Horizon games - I particularly like the 'Forzathon' events that happen every hour, where everyone on the server meets up to do cooperative events for about 10-15 minutes. They're complete mayhem in a good way.

I think it's a pretty great game hidden under five layers of jank, bugs, and balancing issues. Comments from Owlcat discord seem to hint at the devs needing at least one more month to polish things before release, but Deep Silver was being Deep Silver. I kickstarted it so I could play at launch, but I'll probably shelve it for a month or two until the most egregious problems are fixed.

Swarms are from the tabletop RPG, and they are basically an AOE check. IIRC the quest giver dude gave me a ton of alchemist fire flasks, though I just ended up bombing the crap out of them with my Grenadier alchemist...

Normal - far too many fights are ones I can (and often will) lose. We're talking random encounter, 5 mobs, party wipe. Necessitating multiple reloads, applying strats, and hoping RNG is on my side this time.Easy - Just about too easy. The game is far more fun on Easy though. Same encounter as above, set mode from Normal to Easy, 5 mobs in a random encounter, I walk away a few hitpoints down.

I am tempted to put the difficulty above Normal to see if the game is actually easier (because they fucked up the scaling on Normal somehow.)

Sounds like my experience with Dragon Age: Origins. Easy was a joke but Normal just ended up with 7 out of 10 battles being reloads and the remaining victories with like 20% health. Which was a shame because I wanted to like the game but gave up on it.

Does it improve as you level up? Since Selby mentioned Dragon Age, the fights in that were really hard at the beginning and got to be routine once you put ten or so levels into your guys and rounded out the party.

Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm at level 5 on Easy and I can still find a few fights after beating the Stag Lord that kill me even on Easy--there's an island with an asston of wisps that I've just decided you are not meant to be on until later, full stop.

The main problem I've found with Kingmaker at low levels is how Owlcat statted out and armed various enemies. Rando bandits have very efficient stat spreads, optimized feats, and nearly all of them are rocking Masterwork or better weapons. Combine that with your NPC party members being very... subpar... and things can get frustrating.

Plus it sure is fun running into random encounters at level 3 that have level 11 Elder Elementals in them which will immediately kill you, with no way to run from it.

That's the stuff that puzzles me. Even on Easy, I had random encounters at level 3 with a Roc and other things that just wiped me quickly. That's such a classic "bad DM" move that I almost think they're doing it for the lulz.